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Paterson tank and taco-method for 4X5 developing

I tried the "taco" method for the first time last Saturday. I used old fabric hair bands to keep them in shape, and with four of them in the tank they stayed put just fine during inversion. If you are not "filling" the tank with film, perhaps an old ruined sheet or two could be used to as spacers - so the film doesn't move around much.
 
Never had much luck with it. I used hairbands to avoid leaving a strip of anti-halation layer on the neg, and they were too loose. On more than one occasion I ended up losing the elastic off of the sheet at some point in the process, resulting in the neg sticking to the sides of the tank and having corners poking out of the soup for most of the developing. Uneven development and in one case even a whole corner that didn't get fixed.

So I bought a cheap set of 5x7 trays on B&H and tried pitch black tray development for the first time this morning. Went perfectly, the negative looks flawless, and doing it all in pitch black was way less of a big deal than I thought it would be. 10/10 would recommend to a friend. Surprisingly it doesn't even seem to have thrown off my zone system calibrations (which were set up for 35mm and 120 film in a steel daylight tank), or at least not enough that I feel like I need to recalibrate. Guess in terms of final negative contrast, there's not all that much of a difference between agitation by inversion in tank, and agitation by rocking a tray.
 
Another happy Mod54 user here. Simple to use, easy to load. only drawback is it requires a full liter of chemistry if you are doing 1 or 6 sheets of film.
I'll probably try the SP445 in the foreseeable future but the Mod54 works great.
 
I've developed several hundred sheets with the taco method. I started with a 2-reel tank but but the sheets are just a bit too large and I would get marks in the corners. I switched to the 3-reel tank. I put half of a 35mm reel on top to hold the sheets in place, because sometimes the sheets slip out of their bands if agitation is too rough.

The marks on the back of the film occur because of insufficient fixing due to the hair bands. You can open the tank after a few minutes of fixing and push the hair bands down a bit, just enough so that the previously covered portions are uncovered. Continue fixing for a few minutes and the marks will disappear. I usually don't bother with this step because it's messy and the marks don't show up in scanning or printing.
 
Succesful with Taco. And I fell into the rubber band trap (in fact, I landed in this thread because I searched for similar experiences).

I used bands I cut off from surgical masks (which we all have in the dozens). They are "textiley" and have a soft/permeable coating: perfect results. (Foma 100, Paterson tank)
Yesterday I used rubber bands: that batch (4 negatives in a tank) has weird marks. Not scratches, it seems the rubber "covered" the back and something happened (looks like the negative was not washed). I re-washed those negatives and hope they get better.
 
devb28 said:
....The marks on the back of the film occur because of insufficient fixing due to the hair bands. ....
Click to expand...
I have been pondering over the marks. The band is on the non-emulsion side. It shoudln't (in theory) make any difference with developer and/or fixer. What am I missing?
 
The hair bands prevent the solutions - all of them - from getting at any anti-halation that may be on the back.
 
MattKing said:
The hair bands prevent the solutions - all of them - from getting at any anti-halation that may be on the back.
Click to expand...
Thanks. It was too late and my brain too mushy because of the heat to recall the anti-halation layer. So: I am just going to use the other bands that worked.
 
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